Doubt
by RedFluffyBanana
Summary: The three times Kate Bishop doubted her choice to become a Young Avenger. Some sentimental fluff. Rating for scenes of a disturbing nature.  Drabble.


Author Note: Just a little something I wrote in an hour, to try and destroy my crippling writer's block. Probably going to re-write and extend within the week. Beware sentimental fluffery.

Doubt 

Doubt, that raw, festering sensation that gnawed at the edge of reason; a plague that, once contracted, would continue to infect, to _grow_ until it overwhelmed every conscious thought, every waking moment. Kate Bishop would come to experience this only three times; the first was at the sharp bite of a bullet entering the muscle in her forearm. The pain was excruciating.

She screamed.

Hot tears blurred her vision, and streamed down her face. Overhead, the battle continued on. An explosion of light erupted from Wiccan's fingertips. A glimpse of a veined wing as it soared among the clouds of dust that had settled over the area. . A giant hand, Cassie's hand, crashed through a nearby building, scattering rubble onto the road, flattening vehicles that had been abandoned there. The roar of a machine gun deafened her senses. Crimson blood, _her blood_, wept from her arm, cradled by its twin against her chest. Such a simple thing – a tiny projectile-had incapacitated her.

The second, that even now, would cause her to wake, bed sheets drenched in her sweat, with but a ghost of a whisper on her lips. The sense of hopelessness, as she stared down the foreboding barrel of the handgun, was unbearable. Heart hammering in her chest, perspiration beading on her forehead, all she could manage to stutter was "please...no." Saliva pooled in her mouth, bile rushed up her throat. Her limbs trembled as she counted the seconds before the bullet entered her brain. Her eyes darted to her bow, discarded on the floor out of arms reach. She was at his mercy.

Kate Bishop wasn't bulletproof. She hadn't been blessed with super strength, or magic powers, or alien ancestry. She was, simply, _merely_, human. With human desires, human strengths, human weaknesses. Cassie, her best friend, had insisted (with a mouth full of cereal) that she too was human. That so was Billy and Tommy, Iron Man, Wasp, Eli, Captain America, the Fantastic Four…

She nodded her head, mumbled, "yeah, I guess so," and then left- her thoughts chaotic and anguished. How long could she pretend to be part of a world that she, clearly, didn't belong?

She was a kid playing dress up living a childish fantasy.

And so it was that the third time she experienced doubt was as the witness to a heartless murder. They were juvenile teenagers, armed with shotguns and pistols, getting their thrills from basic robbery. A kid, dressed in a rudimentary cape and mask, was caught in the crossfire. She could still hear the grief-stricken wails of the mother as she embraced her child's lifeless corpse in her arms.

"What makes me so different? God, I'm out of my depth…."

"Classic superhero doubt- we've all experienced it." He scrunched up the paper in his hand, "Heck, even Thor, would you believe it."

She leant forward, wrapped her coat around her and folded her arms across her chest, "No I don't." She sighed wistfully, "What I wouldn't give to fly, or be able to read minds."

He tossed another peanut into his mouth, "I know of a few people who are dying for the skills we have… and besides powers don't make a superhero. You're a hero in here." He gestured with a finger, before quirking an eyebrow at his own sentimentality. "If cap could've heard me say that…." He shook his head contemplatively, pushed himself to his feet, and glanced off into the distance, "you just remember that, Hawkeye. Don't go letting the side down."

She watched him walk away, mingling with the crowds, melting into normality; her fingertips resting on the place he had indicated. Her heart.

She glanced down at the gravel beneath her feet, feeling a slight blush creep along her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. She smiled tentatively, and reached down to pluck the purple-hued glasses from her jean pocket. With a steady hand she put them on, pushed herself off the park bench, and ran to the nearest alleyway.

From that moment on, Kate Bishop would never come to doubt herself again.


End file.
